The invention herein pertains to a tool for mounting steps on a tree trunk or other support and particularly pertains to a tool which can be readily used to attach and remove conventional, portable L-shaped steps.
Various designs for portable tree steps have been available for many years and used by hunters and others for climbing trees. U.S. Pat. No. 4,697,669 demonstrates a typical step having a threaded pivotal member for attachment purposes. To help attach such portable steps, a variety of tools or wrenches have been devised in the past as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,899,124, 5,743,353 and 5,624,007. Conventional tools are generally bulky and inconvenient to carry in that they have a handle at an approximate 90 degree angle to the tool body. Also, certain of the prior art tools require assembly and the use of two or more tool components increases the possibility of the tool becoming useless, should one of the components be lost.
Thus, in view of the disadvantages and difficulties using conventional tree step tools., and their limited abilities, the present invention was conceived and it is one objective thereof to provide a tool for a conventional portable L-shaped step for engaging the step for either mounting or removing the step from its mounted location.
It is still another objective of the present invention to provide a method for attaching or removing a tree step from a tree trunk using a special easy to carry tool.
It is yet another objective of the present invention to provide a tool which has a U-shaped channel member, a handle affixed to the U-shaped channel member and an impact rod contained within the U-shaped channel member for mounting a conventional tree step.
It is a further objective of the present invention to provide a tree step tool which has a handle axially aligned with the U-shaped channel member, and attached to an impact rod.
It is still another objective of the present invention to provide a tree step tool having a handle formed from a polymeric material and a U-shaped channel member formed from a rigid material such as metal.
Various other objectives and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art as a more detailed description is set forth below.
The aforesaid and other objectives are realized by providing a tool for easily setting and removing portable steps from a support such as a tree trunk. The tool includes a somewhat pear-shaped handle which is in axial alignment with a U-shaped channel member. An impact rod is positioned inside the U-shaped channel member and extends toward the distal end thereof. The pear-shaped handle is affixed to the impact rod. The method of use of the tool demonstrates placing a tree step having a pivotal, pointed and threaded lug in the U-shaped channel member whereby the blunt or rear end of the threaded lug contacts the impact rod near the axle pin. The threaded lug is then positioned against a tree trunk while inside the tool whereupon the tool handle can be manually struck to drive the pointed threaded lug slightly, into the tree. Next, the tree step and tool can be turned in a clockwise direction to rotate the threaded lug into the tree trunk for securement. Once the tree step is then properly set, the tool is removed and the tree step can then pivot downwardly at the axle pin to its normal configuration against the tree and be used in climbing. The tools handle which may be formed of a polymeric material has a pear shape and is in axial alignment with the longitudinal axis of the U-shaped member. Thus, with the tree step inserted in the tool, the tool handle can be struck to start the threaded lug into the tree trunk. To remove the tree step, the tool is placed on the tree step in a different manner, with the step tread in the tool U-shaped channel member and is used to rotate the step in a counter clockwise direction, thus easily unthreading the tree step from the tree trunk or other support.